We are so pleased to announce that our radio piece is completed! It's been an incredible journey, and it's a joy to share this work with you all. You can listen to it here on PRX.
Thanks for all your support!
Monday, March 10, 2014
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Almost there!
We are two weeks out from project completion and the launch of our updated website! Starting March 1, you'll be able to view more pictures from Rwanda, hear some clips from the documentary, and begin exploring more of Peacetalks' work. Stay tuned to learn when the documentary will air on a radio station near you.
That's all for now...back to editing I go!
#echoesfromrwanda
Saturday, February 1, 2014
Project Update
It's been a while since our last update for you, but we've been so very busy with the project! In the past year we have taken a return trip to Rwanda, and now we are in the final push as we piece together the documentary and prepare it for editing. We'll be sure to post more details about the release date when we have it, but as we lock ourselves away for "documentary work days," I wanted you to see what we've been up to while traveling through Rwanda. Here's a little video with photos from both trips to Rwanda to hold you over until we announce the release of our documentary and updated website!!!
Monday, January 21, 2013
Teaching Peace through Sports
We didn’t take
much time to orient ourselves to the city of Kigali before diving into
interviews…we were too excited to get going with our work! After a day or two
of learning our way around the city, we set off to a café restaurant to meet
with Jean de Dieu Basabose for our first interview. We were anxious to learn
about the work he and his organization, Shalom Educating for Peace, have been
doing in Rwanda and the Great Lakes Region.
Founded in 2007,
Shalom Educating for Peace focuses on educating young people on how to resolve
conflict in non-violent ways. Although their traditional education and peer
mediation programs are remarkable, the part of their work that truly piqued my
interest was Shalom’s sports programming. Shalom runs sports camps as a way of
bringing students together to play and learn as a group. What is unique about
their method, though, is that they do not use referees for the sports games. As
they teach the children conflict resolution skills, the students are encouraged
to put these skills into practice as they must be their own referees for the
games. Shalom’s success with this program is promising for the future of Rwanda
as young people learn resolve conflict without violence.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
“Beauty to Broken Places”
Confession: I’m a history nerd.
Yep, it’s true. Nerd to the core. And as a self-proclaimed
history nerd, I have this weird obsession with remembering and commemorating
everything. To me, it’s utterly important to remember our history and where we
came from in order to move confidently toward our future. But while I was in
Rwanda, I realized that the constant commemoration of tragic events can make it
difficult to move forward, especially when these commemorations and memorial
sites reflect death.
In the years immediately following the genocide, Rwandans
built makeshift memorials and mass graves to bury their loved ones. However,
these memorials were poorly constructed and did not serve as a life-giving
place for survivors to mourn. The photo below shows the genocide memorial near
Gisenyi several years ago.
 |
| Rugerero Genocide Memorial, circa 2004 (photo courtesy Barefoot Artists) |
However, thanks to Lily Yeh and her project, Barefoot
Artists, this memorial looks nothing like that today. In 2004, after hearing
about the situation in Rwanda ten years after the genocide from Jean Bosco
Rukirande, a Red Cross Regional Coordinator from Rwanda, she decided to travel
to Rwanda to see how she could help. Over the past nine years, Lily has been
working with the locals to revitalize their community and their memorial,
honoring the genocide victims with a beautiful memorial and bringing life,
color, and a renewed economy to a traumatized community. (To learn more about
all the ways that Lily and Barefoot Artists has been assisting the Rugerero
community, please visit their beautiful new website here.)
 |
| Rugerero Genocide Memorial, July 2012 |
Don’t get me wrong: it’s still absolutely heart-wrenching to
visit these genocide memorials, regardless of how beautiful they may be. They
still speak to the unfathomable loss that Rwandans experienced and the pain
that continues to be felt as a result of the genocide. But to be witness to the
remarkable transformation of a community that has been so scarred by tragedy –
to see that beauty has been brought to such broken places – is truly an honor
and brings such hope to my soul.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Attention local readers!
For more information and to view a catalog, visit Ten Thousand Villages online. Hope to see you there!
Friday, November 30, 2012
Reflections
July 28, 2012
Yesterday at the memorial,
I was triggered by some things that surprised me. While walking through the
exhibit there was a picture of kids looking at a family search board after the
genocide, and it brought back such strong memories of 9/11. I really wasn’t
expecting those memories, and I just had to sit by the photo for a while. I was
so strongly reminded of 9/11 and how it changed the world as I knew it…how my
sense of safety and security was robbed from me…how I was old enough to know
things would change but young enough to not really understand what was
happening. I know one would be hard-pressed to draw parallels between 9/11 and
the genocide, but seeing those kids looking at the search boards…I understood
that their lives had changed, their sense of safety was gone, and they were too
young to really understand why this all had happened. Even though I’ll never
understand the depths of their pain, in that moment I had a window into their
lives, and all I wanted to do was hug them and cry with them.
| Courtesy Los Angeles Times, http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2011/11/encountering-the-dead-journey-to-rwanda.html |
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